Transplant +4
Day 67
Transplant +4
Not much new to share today. Mucositis is worsening and with it both mucositis pain and Tates chronic joint, migraine and body pain. Chronic pain and acute pain don’t mix well. The acute pain seems to rev up the pain receptors and increase pain outside of the mucositis areas. It’s a strange response, but one we see repeatedly for Tate and a reaction which the pain team is not foreign to. Dilaudid basal rate and pca were increased to try to stay on top of the pain.
Vomiting and nausea continue and they started Tate on lasix today to try to get rid of some of the fluid she’s holding onto. The chemo causes tissue damage which causes the tissues to just kind of soak it in. They’ll heal and this will eventually self resolve.
The highlight tonight was getting one of our primary team nurses. It means they already know Tate and her needs and likes. We already have a relationship, we’ve known and loved Elise since October, and it just makes the entire night smoother and more restful. Because of the nursing shortage, and how lucrative travel nursing has become, there’s a lot of juggling and floating units by nurses which means lots of new faces. This is hard on everyone….the nurses included.
Tates white counts continue to remain at zero, and her Red counts continue to drop. She’ll likely need a blood transfusion tomorrow. They don’t want her counts climbing yet as it would mean her own cells are coming back and not the new cells. So this is good news.